Thursday, 26 November 2015

Happy birthday, Nicholas Bumblebee

When I told the gang at the Press Club I was pregnant, they just looked at me like I had two heads.

"You're having a baby?"

Ok, I guess I didn't measure up back then as motherhood material.

In fact, if I am to be perfectly honest, I didn't ever think I'd be a mother. I didn't really like kids that much. So me being pregnant came as much a surprise to me as anybody else.

The pregnancy was a bi-product of a relationship I was having with Mr. Big. I actually wanted to have Mr. Big's baby, and so there I was, nearing 30, unemployed thanks to Brian Mulroney's trashing of all us good Liberals, drifting.

A baby seemed like an ok thing to do until I found something else.

And so it was I began the three decade journey to where I am today. Startlingly, I am a mother of three and grandmother to one and a half children. (The second one, the Baby Flo will be hatched sometime in April.)

Tomorrow marks the birth date of my first spawn, Nicholas Alexandre, a boy conceived in love, and raised by two parents who now detest one another, parents who haven't spoken for nearly a decade. Nick turns 30 tomorrow, which is miraculous considering I nearly lost him half a dozen times, first to his father and step-mom, then to drugs and loose women. He's been on an adventure alright and because of that adventure, he's well seasoned for his age.

Everything started off good. He is half French, half English born on the prairies. We thought he could have been prime minister, but he had other ideas.

Nick was born without a thyroid gland, and was diagnosed with an 18 month developmental delay. Looking back, I think they were a bit conservative. The delay was more like 18 years, which he spent trying to sort things out.

When Mr. Big decamped for another vagina, he took Nick with him which was a terrible mistake. Nick and his stepmom locked horns at all crossings. She burned him with an iron and made him eat a steady stream of Beefaroni in the garage. When he threatened her with physical harm, Big took him and dropped him off at a boarding school which has since been shuttered because of horrific tales of abuse. A couple of years ago, Nick and the other kids won a multimillion dollar class action suit against the school. Didn't matter, the damage had been done.

I got him out of that school and we battled. He took to the street, slept in parking garages, left high school. Fortunately, he turned himself around, graduated high school and went to university, but he continued to battle his demons and poor choices.

It took baby Skylar to wake him up, and since she's been in his life, he's turned it around.
He's also benefited by the love and support of his partner, Sara, who has woken Nick up to his potential. Today, he works as a departmental manager at Walmart. He has published two books of poetry, while I have published no books.

He is a kind and sweet young man, and I am proud to have known him all these years.

I've realized in my dotage that having Nick and his sibs has made me a better person who is less obsessed with my own sad, silly little life. I am proud of them. They are my life's work.